


Show Me How to Lie (You're Getting Better All the Time)

by hebravelyranaway



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Bullying, Childhood Behavior Problems, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Detention, Dumbledore is trying, Enemies to Friends, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Good Dumbledore, Growing Up, Mental Health Issues, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Riddle at Hogwarts Era, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Sorting, Teacher Dumbledore, Teenagers, Young Tom Riddle, Zombies, bullying fail, but also just, but only slightly - Freeform, but really more like attempted bullying, but trying to help preteens is like herding cats, don't worry Dumbledore, in which Tom makes absolutely no effort to hide that he's a disturbed child when he gets to Hogwarts, just try bullying a future dark lord and see how well it turns out for you, no one but Dumbledore cares, that aren't quite zombies, they never go in the direction you want them to, they're going to grow up to be perfectly well-adjusted dark wizards, unethical use of magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-07 02:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10350795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hebravelyranaway/pseuds/hebravelyranaway
Summary: Two Slytherin first years make the mistake of picking on their new "muggleborn" classmate, not expecting him to know how to defend himself.  When they're proven decidedly wrong, Dumbledore has to act as a mediator between the traumatized Malfoy and Black heirs and their not-even-slightly-traumatized intended victim: Tom Riddle.(An AU in which Tom Riddle is actually pretty bad at hiding his true nature when he first comes to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore is still the only one who notices there might be something wrong with the kid.)





	

Dumbledore watched the first year Slytherins closely as they filed into his classroom, looking for clues about how they were getting along with a certain maybe-muggleborn orphan.  Tom’s temperament, when combined with the tendency of some Slytherin purebloods to bully students they thought were inferior, was a recipe for disaster, and one that he had already warned Horace about.  While he was a firm believer that every student deserved a fresh start at Hogwarts, and so hadn’t passed on the disturbing stories about Tom that Mrs. Cole had told him, he _had_ warned him that Tom was unusually powerful and possessed a temper, and that he was worried about what could happen if his new housemates tried to bully him. 

Horace had looked at him oddly for that.

“If they _tried_? The students you’re talking about are from households that teach their children the Dark Arts from the time they can talk.  Unfortunately, if they tried to hurt someone, they would be perfectly capable of succeeding.”

“In most cases, yes.  But can they do Dark spells wandlessly and without any instruction?”

Horace’s eyebrows had practically reached his hairline.

“Not—not usually…”

“I do believe that Mr. Riddle invented his own curses before he knew that what he was doing was magic.”

“Really?” Horace had said, trying and failing to look more worried than excited by the news.  Dumbledore had sighed.

“I am well aware how much you value those with potential, Horace,” he had said dryly, “and believe me, Tom has it in spades, but I thought you might appreciate the warning that the situation is liable to spin out of control.  Putting purebloods who were taught to look down on muggleborns together with a muggleborn who answers every insult, no matter how small, by exacting horrible revenge, does not make for the most stable situation.”

“No, no, I suppose you are right,” Slughorn said.  “Still, you know that it is the way in Slytherin to let students work out their own troubles.”  He held up his hand in surrender at Dumbledore’s reproving look.  “ _Of_ _course_ I’ll step in if things get out of hand, Albus, but barring that, I will be curious to see who comes out on top in any conflicts between your bad-tempered prodigy and the heirs of the prestigious houses that are in his year.”

“Horace.  They’re _eleven_.  I don’t think it’s actually necessary to wait for it to get to the point where things devolve into a power struggle.”

Horace had shrugged unconcernedly. 

“Everything in Slytherin is a power struggle, Albus,” he said airily.  “If they don’t start young, how will they ever get good at it?”

And that had been the end of that discussion. 

Albus sighed.  He was afraid he would never understand Slytherins. 

It appeared that he had been right to be concerned, because as the new Slytherins filed into the room, he could see the wary distance the boys stayed from Tom, and yet, as one they seemed to decide to ignore their fear and unwillingly sit in the circle of desks around him.  Albus warily eyed the little smirk that formed on Tom’s face as they did so.

Sometimes he did hate when his instincts were right.  Though he had likely been taught the Dark Arts from a young age, Dumbledore doubted that someone like Abraxas Malfoy had experienced much in the way of pain or fear himself, and Tom, who had evidently been keeping himself safe in some of the worst parts of London for who knew how long, probably had very different ideas about what was actually intimidating than Malfoy did. 

Orion Black didn’t look quite as frightened by Tom as the Malfoy heir, who was leaning away from Tom slightly even after sitting down.  He supposed that made sense; the Blacks were known to both shelter their children less than the Malfoys and be more insane, so whatever Tom had done had Orion Black looking wary and curious rather than frightened.  Their friends, Lestrange and Avery, looked on-edge, but seemed to be unnerved by Malfoy and Black’s unusual behavior more than Tom’s; they kept looking from their friends to the orphan in a confused way that told him that they might not have directly witnessed what Tom had done.

After the last students trickled into the classroom, he went through the customary welcome and introduction portion of the first class, then began writing instructions on how to turn a matchstick into a needle on the board, watching with curiosity as his students began to try their hand at their first bit of transfiguration.  It was always so wonderful to see the spark of comprehension as they understood it for the first time, and he was eager to see who would get it first, though it was rare to have someone complete the assignment in the first class period.

He had his suspicions about who would finish first, of course. Tom was certainly powerful enough, but he did not yet know enough of the boy to determine whether or not he had an intellect to match his remarkable instinctual grasp of magic.

Though he tried to keep his attention on all of his students, his eyes would wander more frequently over to Mr. Riddle, and so he saw the boy’s concentration as he studied the instructional diagram he had written on the board for a few minutes before taking out his wand and completely transfiguring his match to a needle on the first try.  He gave a small, satisfied smirk, and, evidently unused to calling attention to the fact that he had finished an assignment before anyone else, sat back in his seat and lazily started making his needle spin in mid-air with a wave of his hand.  When he made the needle fly a little too far towards Abraxas Malfoy, the boy flinched away a little before he could stop himself.  Tom chuckled at the reaction, even if it was apparent to Dumbledore that he had intimidated his classmate unintentionally, this time.  

Sighing, Dumbledore decided he had ignored the situation long enough.

“Mr. Riddle,” he said sternly.  “There is no reason for you to make your classmate believe that you were about to impale him on a sewing needle.”

Tom’s attention snapped back to him, and for a moment, he saw the rage flash behind his eyes, before he quickly covered it.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him.  I was just bored,” he said disinterestedly, leaning back in his seat again and causing the needle to spin lazily over his head for a moment before sending it careening into the desk like a javelin, where it bounced off the surface, and lay still.

“I can see that, but that is no reason to relieve that boredom by taking joy from a classmate’s discomfort.”

“They would have ‘taken joy from my discomfort’ plenty, if I’d let them,” he said unrepentantly.  Abraxas scowled.

“Tattle tale,” he muttered.  Tom rolled his eyes.

“What, it’s not like the teachers are  even going to care about a little thing like name-calling.  I’m sure your spoiled ar—” he interrupted himself in the middle of his swear, evidently remembering where he was, though he didn’t seem to care whether or not he was in trouble enough to so much as glance in Dumbledore's direction, “—I’m sure you will be just fine.”

“Language, Mr. Riddle.  And I don’t know what your instructors’ attitudes towards name-calling was in your previous school, but at Hogwarts, we _do_ take it rather seriously.”

Tom froze at the realization that he had mistakenly gotten a teacher involved, and thus, had told on his classmate by his definition of it, but he folded his arms across his chest and stared ahead coolly as if stubbornly refusing to feel bad for it.

“Unfortunately, our prejudices sometimes lead us to make foolish choices,” Dumbledore continued, looking over his spectacles at the Malfoy and Black heirs, before looking again at Tom.  “I am not excusing their behavior, but I would be disappointed if either your classmates or you decided to hurt each other further in an effort to resolve this conflict.  You, Mr. Malfoy, and Mr. Black will see me after class to resolve whatever happened between you, Mr. Riddle.”

Tom gave him a sharp look, frowning, then reluctantly elaborated on the situation, as if the truth was being dragged from him by force.

“I didn’t _really_ hurt them, professor.  I remembered what you said about hurting people,” he said stiffly.

“So you scared them.”

“Yes.”

“We will talk about it more after class, Mr. Riddle,” he said a little bit more kindly.  He felt a little bit of hope at the news that the boy _had_ evidently taken his warning about hurting his fellow students to heart to a certain extent, at least.

“…Yes, sir.”

He nodded at the boy, then turned his attention to the rest of his students, who were unashamedly staring at the confrontation.

Albus chuckled.

“While it is understandable to become distracted when something more interesting comes along, I believe you have assignments to complete?”

Several children blushed, and with a murmur of assent, most went back to working.

“How much of your book have you read already, Tom?” he asked, turning back to the boy who had already become so bored by his lesson.

He blinked in surprise at being addressed again, evidently not expecting to receive any recognition for completing his assignment before everyone else.  Dumbledore was beginning to wonder if, at his previous school, it had been common for Tom to finish his assignments far ahead of everyone else and then be expected to entertain himself for the rest of a lesson.

“All of it, sir.”

He nodded.

“Very good, Tom. I would like you to go to the next chapter, and complete the last practice transfiguration in that chapter for me, then write out the diagram and the equations associated with the transfiguration on a new sheet of parchment.  Raise your hand to tell me as soon as you’re done, so I can come over and inspect your work.”

Tom looked at him steadily for a moment, a hint of confusion flashing behind his wary eyes, before nodding.

“Yes, sir.”

It wasn’t long before he had finished that one as well, and he successfully completed seven more transfigurations before the end of the lesson.  In contrast, only two other first years had finished their first assignment by the end of the class period, though all of the others, he was proud to note, had already managed to make their match at least a bit pointy or silvery.

Learning to channel magic into transfiguration spells was the most difficult thing to accomplish at first for beginning students, because it took fine control of magic that most first years didn’t have, yet.  They would begin to get their spells right more quickly as the year went on, but because most eleven-year-olds didn’t have practice controlling their magic deliberately, it took them awhile to get an instinctual feel of the fine control that was required for most transfiguration spells. 

Children who had extensively made use of deliberate wandless magic before coming to Hogwarts didn’t generally have the same problem, however, and that was why Tom was probably even more ahead of his classmates here than he was in other classes.  Some branches of magic, such as charms, were easier to grasp instinctually, and did not take the same type of control.

However, this likely meant that he would have to come up with an individual lesson plan for Tom just as his professors had for him when he was in school.  If he didn’t, Tom would be perpetually bored, and a bored Tom Riddle had the potential to be much more hazardous to his classmates than a bored Albus Dumbledore.  Yet another thing he had to speak to Tom about eventually, though first, he would need to speak to the rest of Tom's professors, and come up with a time to test his potential and find out which level of course material he should actually be working on.   

 

When the class ended, and the rest of the students trickled out, Tom and his two fellow Slytherins reluctantly stayed back and approached his desk.  With a flick of his wand he conjured three comfy chairs for the boys to sit on.

“Now, who wants to tell me what happened?” he asked patiently after they sat down.

“He started it!” the Malfoy boy said, pointing at Tom.  Considering that he had already called Tom a tattle-tale, and he wouldn’t have done that if Tom’s accusations weren’t true, Albus didn’t quite believe him, for some reason.  Tom narrowed his eyes at Abraxas, while even Orion Black looked a little bit incredulous.

“No, he didn’t,” Black said. “We made him feel unwelcome.  But he didn’t have to send the zombies after us.  Not even my crazy aunt keeps zombies.”

_Wait, zombies?_

“They _weren’t_ zombies.  And you did a lot more than make me feel unwelcome.  Malfoy said that I better watch my back, because the only way a mudblood is going to be safe in Slytherin is if he’s running out the door with his tail between his legs, and then you laughed, and said, ‘like the dog he is’.  You’re very well lucky I didn’t want to get expelled, or youda been screaming, and not just because you were afraid.”

“That’s _enough_ , Tom.  Kindly refrain from threatening your classmates.  Orion, Abraxas.  Is it true that you said those things?”

“No,” Malfoy said stubbornly.  “I never called him anything that bad.  He’s a _liar_.  The little tattle-tale just wants to get us in trouble.”

Black gave Dumbledore a calculating look.

“Yes, we said that,” he admitted with a blasé shrug of his shoulders.

“Ori!”

“What?  He already knows we really did it, or he wouldn’t be asking.  He just wants us to admit it.  Mother does that to me all the time.”

“Mr. Black is right, Mr. Malfoy.  And besides, it’s better to admit to wrongdoing right away and get it over with.  It makes things far less unpleasant for everyone in the long run.  Tom, your classmate said you sent zombies after them, but you said they weren’t zombies.  Would you please explain to me what you did?”

Tom narrowed his eyes in consideration.

“…Fine.  I was at the back of the group after we left the feast, and I picked up some rat skeletons that I found in the hallway in case I needed to scare someone, because everyone was glaring at me and whispering about me during the feast and I thought I had better have a contingency plan. Lucky I did, because as soon as the prefect left and we were alone in the common room, _these two_ ambushed me.  Or, they tried to, at least,” he said with a small, satisfied smile.  “As soon they got done with their little speech about me running out of the common room like a _beaten dog_ , I put the rat skeletons I’d hidden on the floor and then moved them with my mind so that it would look like they were going to attack them, and I pinned Malfoy and Black in place with my mind so they had to sit still when I made the rat zombies climb up their legs and snap their teeth at them like they were going to bite them.  They screamed like little girls,” he said with a fond little smile.  “Um. But, I mean, they weren’t _really_ zombies, I don’t think.  I would know if I raised the dead, wouldn’t I?  I think I just made them move with my mind.”

Ah. Well, as disturbing as that story was, he thought Tom was right.  From what he described, the spell that he had performed thankfully sounded less like actual necromancy and more like an elaborate use of telekinesis.  It wasn’t even quite like the animation of inanimate objects that one could do with advanced transfiguration.

“You’re right, thankfully. Real zombies take on some small semblance of life and can move on their own, though their spirits are twisted and insane from being torn unwillingly from the afterlife.  That is very dark magic, and something I am glad that you _did not_ do.”

Tom’s eyebrows furrowed.

“But have you seen real zombies then, sir?  How do you know so much about them?”

“Unfortunately, there is a man in Europe who is rather fond of them, or at least, something similar to zombies, which are called inferi.  He keeps sending armies of them after me whenever I try to travel abroad. It is quite inconvenient.”

“Lord Grindelwald has an army of inferi, sir?” Orion Black cut in, looking fascinated, and Dumbledore took a moment to note, with some concern, that Tom hadn’t been the only one of the boys who had looked a little bit disappointed to find out for certain that Tom’s creations hadn’t really been zombies.  All three of them were now looking back at him with wide, fascinated eyes, and Albus scolded himself for forgetting that these were eleven-year-old boys, and Slytherins, to boot, so of _course_ they were going to be interested in zombies. 

“Yes, he does, but that’s not as exciting as it sounds.  It’s actually rather horrible.”

Tom exchanged a significant look with Orion, suddenly going from at each other’s throats to plotting together in the space of a moment, and Albus had no idea how it had happened.

“And I don’t want to hear that any of you have been looking up zombie-raising rituals in your free time,” he said sternly.

“Yes, sir,” they said as one.

He had a bad feeling about this.  At least the boys were no longer in conflict, now? 

“Thank you,” he said, hiding his trepidation, because it would be a lot easier to catch them doing something wrong if they thought he wasn’t suspicious of them.  “Now, we shall finish discussing what happened here, and I shall send you on your way.  Tom, first I want to say that, while I am happy that you took what I said to heart and stopped hurting people that annoy you, there are different kinds of hurt, and terrifying your classmates can cause them almost as much damage as physical pain can.  Due to the nature of what they said to you, though, I am willing to be a _little bit_ more lenient with you this time.”

Tom nodded, and then opened his mouth, as if hesitant to ask something.

“What does mudblood mean, sir?” he finally said.  “I knew it meant I had dirty blood, obviously, but I don’t understand the context.”

“Mr. Malfoy, would you like to explain the word you used?” he said, pinning Abraxas with a stare.  He dropped his eyes to the desk.

“It means that your parents were muggles,” he muttered reluctantly.

“And?” Dumbledore prodded.  “Look Tom in the eye while you explain this to him.  You were able to say it to him, explaining the nature of what you were actually saying to him when you called him that shouldn’t be much of a hardship for you.”

The boy flushed, but did as he was told.

“And that…because you’re a muggle—”

“I am _not_!” Tom said sharply.

“—because _your parents_ were muggles, you’re corrupting our society with your presence, because muggleborns always want to corrupt our customs with muggle ones, and they try to marry purebloods, which is a threat to the purity of _our_ bloodlines, and they don’t know their place.”

“And?  That’s not all, is it?  What other connotations are there to the word you used, Mr. Malfoy?”

Malfoy went white, but steeled himself, and turned back to Tom, looking at him like he was expecting to meet his death.

“It means that you’re—you’re dirty, less than us, not even really human—”

Tom’s face curled into a snarl, and Albus got his wand ready in case he had to put a shield charm between them.

“You’re really making me regret that I didn’t hurt you, Malfoy,” he snarled.

“I’m sorry that I made him say that to you, Mr. Riddle, but I thought it best for him to better understand the grave nature of the insult he dealt you so that he wouldn’t do it again.  Mr. Malfoy, did telling him what that word meant feel different to you than saying the word?”

“…Yes,” he said, looking at once furious and miserable.

“Why do you think that is?”

“…Because I knew what it meant, and that was why I called him that, but I didn’t really think about everything I was calling him until you made me say it out loud,” he admitted grudgingly.

“Don’t you have anything to say to Mr. Riddle?”

Malfoy scowled.

“I’m…sorry for calling you a mudblood.”

“Are you going to use that word again?” Albus asked right away, because from the look in his eyes, it didn’t look like Tom was about to accept his apology any time soon.  From what he had seen of the boy, he was hardly the forgiving sort.

“…No.” 

 _Until he goes home and hears his parents using it, again,_ Albus thought cynically.

“Mr. Black?”

“I’m sorry for comparing you to a dog, and ganging up on you with Abraxas.  Also, can you take me with you while you look for zombie raising rituals?” he said, casting an impish side-glance in Albus’ direction.  Albus gave him a stern look but waited to actually intervene, if only because he was intrigued by the bond that was evidently developing between those two.

Tom looked at him in consideration.

“Fine, but I’m not taking Malfoy.”

“Fine by me.”

“Hey!  Some friend _you_ are,” the Malfoy heir protested.

Albus decided that he had to intervene before they actually started making plans together.

“I do believe I mentioned this before, but nobody is going to look up zombie raising rituals.  I will be very upset if I find out you tried.”

Orion turned to him with wide-eyed innocence, while Tom’s face went completely blank with fake compliance.

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry, sir.”

He nodded even though he wasn’t the least bit convinced, hoping he would be able to stop things before Hogwarts suddenly had an army of Evil Dead.

“Tom, do you have anything to say to them, as well?”

Tom’s mouth dropped open in astonishment.

“But they attacked me first!”

Albus nodded, not even trying to make the argument that some types of insults didn’t _feel_ as bad as a physical attack, especially to children like Tom.  Besides, the boys _had_ threatened him in a way that implied future violence.  

“Yes, and you responded by terrorizing them.  You need to learn that there is such a thing as going too far when seeking revenge.”

Tom just glared at him, stubbornly staying silent.

“ _Mr. Riddle_ ,” Albus said sternly.,

“… _Fine_.  I’m…sorry I scared you.”

“And why was wrong to scare them the way you did, Mr. Riddle?”

Tom looked back at him blankly.

“Because…scaring my classmates can sometimes cause them just as much damage as physical pain,” he said after a moment, sounding a little unsure, though he tried to hide it.

Albus raised his eyebrows at the boy.  Why was he just quoting what he had said, before? Did he truly not understand why terrifying his classmates with what appeared to be undead skeletons in response to a verbal attack crossed moral boundaries?

“Why do you think that is, Mr. Riddle?” he asked, hoping to get something more than a rote recitation.

The boy gave him an incredulous look.

“How should I know, you’re the one who said it!” he said impatiently.

 Albus sighed, about to ask him what exactly he wasn’t understanding, when Orion decided to take the moment’s pause to re-enter the conversation.

“That’s okay, I’ll forgive you for not _really_ apologizing if you teach me the trick you used.  I can do wandless magic, of course, but I don’t have that fine of control over it.”

“Me too!” Malfoy said.  “I mean, I _guess_ I won’t need an apology this time.  But next time, you’d better watch out.”

Tom eyed them both shrewdly with the air of someone who had just recognized the leverage he had over someone else.

He nodded once, imperiously.

“It’s a deal,” he said generously.

Albus watched the back-and-forth with exasperation, unwittingly amused but doing his best to hide it.  Horace really did know how the members of his house worked better than everyone else, and it seemed they were starting to work things out among themselves on their own with no _permanent_ damage done, at least. 

“Tom, it worries me that you don’t seem to truly understand why using your magic to frighten people to that extent is wrong, but as Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Black seem satisfied, I will explain it further later.  Now, down to the last bit of unpleasant business.  I am afraid I can’t let this incident go unpunished.  All three of you will receive a week’s worth of detention, Mr. Malfoy and Black, for threatening your classmate and using cruel and prejudicial language, and Mr. Riddle, for using your magic to terrorize your classmates.  Mr. Malfoy and Black, you will show up here after dinner tomorrow to drop off your wands, then you will accompany the caretaker, who will give you the supplies to clean the trophy room without magic. You will only be doing that for the first day of your detention, however.  For the next four days, you, Mr. Malfoy, will be doing research on recent muggle cultural and technological developments in Great Britain, while you, Mr. Black, will be doing research on the history of magical/muggle relations in Great Britain.  You will then discuss what you have written in your essay with me, and give me your personal opinions on what you have learned.”

He knew very well that pureblood families such as the Malfoys and Blacks were given prejudicial and inaccurate information about muggles and the threat they posed to wizards, and he would take this opportunity to challenge what they had been taught.  Both boys look horrified by his choice of punishment, as though he couldn’t have assigned them something much worse than extra homework, and Abraxas Malfoy even groaned dramatically and buried his head in his hands.  Albus decided not to acknowledge this ridiculousness.

“Mr. Riddle, you will spend your detentions with me, reading about the laws that govern the use of magic in Wizarding Britain and internationally, the school rules that pertain to the appropriate use of magic, the penalties associated with breaking those rules and laws, and the theory behind what makes some magic harmful and some not.  After you are finished with your readings, you will spend your time writing an essay on what you learned, and why you think some types of magic are banned, while others aren’t.  Afterwards, we will discuss what you have written in your essay, and magical ethics in general.”

Tom scowled.

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good.  Now, unless I’m mistaken, it’s almost dinner time!  I believe that’s all for today, so I will see you back here tomorrow after the dinner hour.  You may go, gentlemen.”

There was a collective sigh of relief, and, looking a little worse for the wear, the boys ambled out of the classroom.  Albus sighed.  That hadn’t been any more pleasant for him than it had been for them.  He would definitely be having an extra desert at dinner just to console himself. Disciplining students was his least favorite part of teaching.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Any recognizable Harry Potter scenes and characters belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling, and I am not making any profit from this story. The title comes from the song "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid", by The Offspring.
> 
> Story trivia: The idea to write a story in which Tom was really bad at hiding the fact that he was an extremely disturbed child was partially inspired by the fact that, when I used to watch Dexter with a friend, we used to joke that Dexter should just say what he's thinking out loud for once, and that nothing could possibly go wrong. (For those who never watched the show, Dexter was a serial killer who worked at a police precinct, and sometimes his inner monologues involved thinking things like, "I hope I hid the body well enough so my coworkers don't find it". Needless to say, following my advice would have turned out very badly for him.) Making Tom almost completely lose his ability to deceive people was funny to me for the same reasons. I don't know. I have a weird sense of humor.


End file.
